2 months ago
The struggles of an artist…I have a client who is dissatisfied with my work…agreeable so. It wasn’t some of my best and I didn’t really capture enough of the story of the day. This is probably one of my firsts, dealing with a client that is so upset and disappointed. It seems like my fashion work is taking off and people really want to work with me but weddings are so much different. The drama, stress, unknowns, timeline…all overwhelming at times. You know what I mean, you’ve been there.
But after letting them talk and just hearing all their upset…I thought of a solution. Not the BEST solution. But a solution. It was nice to see their eyes light up to the idea and made me feel at least a little better…like here we go. I got a lot of help from my team and how supportive they all were to my work. But then again I feel very alone in what I did and didn’t capture.
But there’s lot of learns from this also. What not to do, what to do next time and how it feels to fail. It will only make me stronger and better at what I’m doing and you know what…it could’ve been much, much worse. Thank you for that!
But the flip side of it…I have two big meetings today with Ford Models, & the head of Chicago’s Fashion Focus Week. So I’m not in too bad of a place and def this lesson will make me even better.
I had to post a picture from one of my favorite artists, Paolo Roversi to help me get out of this funk. He always helps to keep my head looking up and to remember where I need to go….
5 months ago
5 months ago
ARTIST Resa Blatman
Boston, MA
Resa on her work:
Through my work, I attempt to show nature at odds with itself by playing with the contradictions of emptiness versus fullness, lush versus barren, and rapture versus displeasure. In my paintings, the berries, linear loops, and tiny dots represent an abundance of embryos, eggs, and seeds. Heaps are an important element: these berries, loops, tiny dots, and sometimes creatures accumulate in piles and mounds and represent the bounty of femininity and ripeness.
My compositions are inspired by the Baroque, Romanticism, and Victorian decorative art, as well as botanical imagery, to create a visual feast of fruit, flora, wildlife, and pattern. I take those elements out of their context and give them a surreal landscape or contemporary stage. Most of the elements are representationally painted with form, yet in the same picture others might be used as decorative backgrounds. The elements and patterns represent a kind of human life cycle, with all of its changes and complexities, while the juxtaposition of these “three-dimensional” and flat forms creates a visually rich dialog that refers to the ongoing contradictions mentioned above — lush versus barren. Themes of excess and beauty are also represented through the decorative qualities in the paintings. Yet, these ornamental, invasive patterns creep into the fecund environments of the birds and bats — sometimes overtaking, even strangling the animals — and along with the ominous berry, create a picture of sensuality mixed with undertones of wanting and dismay.
The new paintings include digitally created, laser cut edges. The various edges, which may include animals, insects, and flourishes, are an extension of the patterns within the paintings. These cut forms, along with the shadows made by the cuts, encourage a three-dimensionality to the work, and by doing so, the patterns become more invasive and experiential.
6 months ago
Dayna Thacker
Atlanta, GA
Dayna on her work:
My interest lies in the systems that humans create for themselves in order to make sense of the world and our place in it. Philosophy and the various religions of the world are some of the systems that I find most fascinating, but there are many others. Science, geometry, mathematics, poetry, literature, mythology, fairy tales, music; all are the result of humans trying to puzzle out the mystery of existence, and they all describe a different part of the same story – and though the methods differ they often reach strikingly similar conclusions. Many of these systems are complex and far-reaching, created by deep thinkers. But many are of our own personal design, created to explain, organize or cope with situations in our individual lives.
Another aspect of my work is the difference between the conclusions we reach with the logical, reasoning, conscious part of ourselves, and the ones that appear suddenly from our intuitive subconscious. We accommodate an incredible amount of informational input these days, and very little of it is from the natural world with which we evolved. Most of it is information we ourselves have created, formulated and compounded, and the resulting blizzard of swirling facts and useless trivia is mind-boggling. Yet, although culturally we give ourselves very little time to be quiet and still, to mentally digest, our subconscious manages to take it all in and occasionally give back a flash of insight.
This process is reflected in my choice of media. Collage, assemblage and installation all utilize existing objects that are collected, taken out of context, and then reconfigured into new relationships. The collecting and sorting of those objects are methodical activities of accumulating information, whereas the recognition of meaning between two disparate objects is an intuitive occurrence.
6 months ago
PaperMonster - Artist
PaperMonster is a stencil graffiti artist who’s vivid and intricate pieces explore the beauty behind the eyes and facial expressions of women. Born in Puerto Rico, PaperMonster incorporates stencil and pasting techniques to create pieces of art on any surface by incorporating pop culture icons, Asian typography, patterns and texture to present vibrant emotions and stories. His work allows the audience to take his creations for pure face value or explore deeper into each piece.
PaperMonster’s stencil art technique continues to grow and evolves demonstrating his ability to grow and explore a wide variety of themes. His work has been featured in magazines and exhibitions throughout the world such as the Melbourne Stencil Festival (Australia 2008), I Am 8-bit show (California), Stolen Space Gallery (London), Rokon Magazine (Seoul, Korea), and Proteus Magazine(Issue 5 Cover.)
6 months ago
Artist Phil Irish
Elora, Canada
About Phil:
Irish has been asking people to draw maps for him. Participants diagram a place of personal significance: perhaps where a decision was taken, or an accident happened, or a place of solace returned to again and againIrish follows these maps, full of curiosity and empathy. At the destination point — significant to another but new to him — Irish draws, takes photographs, and takes time to explore.
The map and Irish’s response to the place are fused as one artwork. Once the process is complete, the finished works spark imagination and wonder in those who engage them.
The visual languages in the paintings are diverse and rich, taking the cues from each individual place. There is often a collision between representation and some form of abstraction that points to a metaphorical reading of the scene. There is joy in the sensuality of the medium, pulling the viewer deeper into the experience of viewing, interpreting, and exploring.
6 months ago
I don’t know why but this guys work speaks to me on a very artificial, dreamlike, fantasy, & just artsy fartsy kind of way.
Tom Chambers was born on a farm in the religiously conservative area of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. After high school he joined the Navy and spent a year on a patrol boat base in Vietnam which profoundly affected his outlook on life. Chambers earned a BFA from the Ringling School of Art and Design. His work has been widely exhibited throughout the United States. He has received numerous awards and honors for his work including a 2000-2001 Fellowship from the Virginia Commission for the Arts and a 2005-2006 Virginia Museum of Fine Arts fellowship.
Tom on his work:
As an artist I have created photo montages to reveal a personal vision about the nature of children, animals, and their interactions. These images illustrate the fleeting moods that can’t be captured by a traditional camera or seen by the naked eye.
I initially sketch out a concept or idea I have for an image. I photograph each piece of the image using a me-
dium format film camera, generally a Mamiya Pro TL or a Fuji Rangefinder. I am careful to make sure the light
intensity and direction are similar in each of these shots.
This process may take a month depending on how quickly I am able to get all the shots and sort through
them picking the ones which work best together. “Pieces” of the final image may include the landscape or
background, often shot in sections, as well as the sky, a human figure, an animal, or another object. The processed film is scanned at a high resolution, approximately 80 megabytes per frame. Then, I use Photoshop
software with a Macintosh computer to combine each “piece”, thus creating the final image. Lastly, the image
is printed with an Epson printer using archival inks and paper.
6 months ago
Jennifer Sanchez - ARTIST
New York, NY
My paintings invite the viewer to experience new and emergent spaces. They explore relational space and the idea that while having no positive existence of its own, space allows everything else to exist. They are full of bright colors, circles and swirls that illustrate a perpetually changing environment. They can be best described as exploding optimism and are unabashedly happy.
At this point, I want to experiment with new palettes, add more spontaneous elements, work larger, and learn more about different conceptions of space.
6 months ago
Artist Ezequiel Ruiz
Ezequiel, aka Ezecuchy, is a graphic design student at the University of Buenos Aires. He has already built an impressive portfolio of collage pieces which reflect the influences of the old masters. Already making a name for himself, we expect to see Ezequiel’s work around for a long time.
Barras’ confident experimentation results in impressive brush strokes that lend a sense of tremendous momentum, particularly when paired with his astonishingly vibrant color palette. “I often use muted colors at first and build it up with washes of paint; I kind of move from one color to another, moving through the palette like it’s a journey.” Sometimes the backdrop of a piece is dark and looming, with a sudden injection of bright tones in places “to make it pop.” It is this heightened contrast that makes Barras’ pieces explode from the confines of their canvas. Perhaps the artist describes it best himself, however, likening his work to “being strapped to the front of a passenger train which is on a collision course with another train.”
Jaz Harold was born in and raised in Monroe, CT. In 2004 she moved to New York City to attend the School of Visual Arts, and graduated with honors in May 2008 earning a BFA in Illustration. She has remained since in New York working as a freelance illustrator and gallery artist.
Jaz’s work thrives on the combination of contradictions; the cute with the creepy, the beautiful with the macabre, the horrific with the humorous, and the corrupted with the innocent. She has a series of lovable, huggable, squishable stuffed animals, embroidered with reminders of mortality, and designed to stash one’s pills. A different run of works focuses on childhood icons in horrific situations; ‘My Little Ponies’ have turned to cannibalism in one such painting, while ‘Rainbow Brite’ awakes to her horse’s decapitated head in another. Her works in various mediums have been displayed in galleries in New York, Connecticut, and Genova, Italy.